Using NetCharts Designer you can easily build an Alert Chart that shows the negative bar values in red and positive bar values in green. This month I thought we would go over the steps in greater detail of how to build an Alert chart using a simple Bar as the chart template.

Here’s how:

1. Launch NetCharts Designer and Create a New Project and select Bar as the chart type.
2. In the General area, change the width size to 450 and leave the height as 300.
3. On the left node, click on Bars. In the Bar Sets area, set the Bar Sets Type: as Stack.
4. Still in the Bar Sets area, click the New Bar Set button 3 times to have a total 4 bar sets.
5. In the Bar Set Properties area of BarSet1 and BarSet4, select Middle in the Labeling: dropdown. Then for the remaining BarSet2 and BarSet3, select External in the Labeling: dropdown.
6. Expand the Axes node and click Left Axes. In the Tic Labels area, uncheck Show Tic Labels to turn off the left axes.
7. Click Bottom Axes, in the Layout area, set the Fade: of the Axis Line Color to be 100%.
8. Still in the Layout area, set both the Left and Right Margin: as 7 px.
9. Click on Notes and click on the New NoteSet button.
10. In the Location And Line area we will enter XY values for the center line. Add -1 in the Note X: text box, 13 in the Line MidPoint X: box and 14 in the Line End X: box. Finally add 0 in the Y: boxes of all three.
11. Still in the Location And Line area, revisit the Line Style dropdown and select basicblackarrow. Click the button with the Pencil icon to open the Arrow Line window. In the Line Style area, set the Width to 2. Click OK to close.
12. In the Mapping area, set the Map X Positions To: Bottom 1 and set Map Y Positions To: Left 1.
13. At the bottom of NetCharts Designer, click the Source tab. Then scroll down to locate:
     
    BarLabels = “Label1″,”Label2″,”Label3″,”Label4″,”Label5″,”Label6”;
    
    and replace it with:
    
    BarLabels = “2010”,”Jan”,”Feb”,”Mar”,”Apr”,”May”,”Jun”,”Jul”,”Aug”,”Sep”,”Oct”,”Nov”,”2011″;
14. Still on the Source tab, locate the default DataSets param which should be two lines down from BarLabels.
    
    DataSets = (“DataSet1”,gainsboro,BAR);
    
    and replace it with:
    
    DataSets = (“DataSet1”,gainsboro,BAR),(“DataSet2”,lightred,BAR),(“DataSet3”,green,BAR),(“DataSet4”,grey,BAR);
15. Finally, 6 lines below DataSets, locate the default
    
    DataSet1 = 10.0,20.0,12.0,15.0,5.0,10.0;
    
    and replace it with:
    
    DataSet1 = 235.0,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null;
    DataSet2 = null,-149.0,-112.0,-98.0,-75.0,-23.0,null,null,null,null,null,null;
    DataSet3 = null,null,null,null,null,null,5.0,35.0,55.0,188.0,250.0,null,null;
    DataSet4 = null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,311.0;
16. Make sure to Save (Ctrl+S) the changes and you’re done!